What is Booktype?

Updated for Booktype 2.0

With Booktype you can create books. Real, good-looking paper books you can hold in your hands. You can also use Booktype's output to PDF, EPUB, XML and HTML to export books ready for Amazon, iBooks, or the open web.

Booktype is designed to help you produce books with others, or by yourself. Booktype is also a social environment where you can discuss your views about producing books, seek assistance from others, or look for projects to contribute to.

Booktype is web-based software which means you do not install it on your computer; rather, you access it through a web browser. It is Free Software (licensed under the GNU Affero GPL), meaning that it can be freely downloaded, re-used and customised. You can install your own copy of Booktype on a server, or alternatively you can set up a cloud-hosted Booktype Pro account and let Sourcefabric, the non-profit organisation which produces Booktype, take care of installation, hosting and security.

Some typical uses of the platform might be:

Writing books - a work of fiction, manuals, cookbooks etc.

Producing printed books

Producing ebooks

Writing any content as an individual

Collaboratively authoring content

Rapidly developing content in 'book sprints'

Customising existing content to apply to a very specific context

Translating a book into another language

While you can use Booktype to support traditional book authoring processes, Booktype also supports the rapid development of content in 'book sprints'. A book sprint is an intensive collaborative event where typically six to ten people can focus on writing a book in three to five days. These collaborators might be in the same room or located around the Internet; in either case, they work together simultaneously to produce a book.

Booktype was originally developed to facilitate the accelerated production models enabled by book sprints. Hence the feature set matches the rapid pace of publishing possible in the modern era of print-on-demand. Using Booktype, print ready source (book formatted PDF) can be generated in a few minutes, and then uploaded to your favourite print-on-demand service.

Whether you are collaborating, writing solo, rapidly developing books, or taking your time - after you have worked with Booktype, you will never think of publishing the old way again.

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